Your tax dollars at work! (NPR)

Linton Weeks never mentioned abortion in this philosophical exploration as he began:

If proposals calling for rights for animals are on the table, why not rights for other living things? Plants, for instance.

After all, plants can sometimes exhibit humanlike behavior. And we're not just talking about the butterwort-flytrap hybrid in The Little Shop of Horrors. Some plants respond well to music. Some "smell" other plants. Still others seem to shrink away when touched.

Plants display remedial types of memory and possess "anoetic consciousness" — the ability of an organism to sense and to react to stimulation — writes Daniel Chamovitz in his 2012 book, What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses.

And, according to. recent reports from a research team led by Australian biologist Monica Gagliano, some plants (such as chili peppers) may be able to "hear" other plants (such as sweet fennel).:laugh:

In other words, Terri Schiavo isn't worth saving because she's a vegetable, but Emancipate the Vegetables?

Weeks did allow the plant-rights people to be rebutted by the animal-rights people (who must not be happy to be told that Pea Soup is Murder), but it was strictly a left vs. left discussion. The bizarre argument continued:

Writing in The New York Times recently, Michael Marder, author of the forthcoming Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life, calls for "plant liberation." Plant stress, Marder points out, does not reach the same intensity, nor does it express itself in the same ways, as animal suffering. This fact, he adds, should be reflected in our practical ethics

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-gr...romotes-rights-and-souls-plants#ixzz2AdwGvsEj